The On-line Journal of Mary Esther Malloy

Kangaroo Mother Care:
Our Species’ Best Medicine for Parenting a Baby Following a Cesarean

Years ago in Zimbabwe, Dr. Nils Bergman introduced a protocol to keep low-weight preterm infants on their mothers, skin to skin, while every other aspect of care remained the same. He found that survival rates for these babies surged from 10 to 50 percent. Dr. Bergman later conducted a randomized controlled trial and found that preterm newborns in skin on skin contact with their mothers for the first six hours after birth were 100 percent stabilized. For babies in incubators, less than 50 percent had stabilized within six hours.